About François Morellet

In the 1960s, Francois Morellet joined Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel (Visual Art Research Group, or GRAV), an experimental group that made installations using non-traditional art materials. Morellet rejected the idea of the individual genius-artist and adopted a stance that artists are facilitators. “By the early Sixties, my friends in the Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel and I had become convinced that the age of painting, of canvases and sculptures had come to an end, over forever,” Morellet explains. “We were passionate about modern materials that hadn’t yet been ‘polluted’ by traditional art. We particularly liked anything that could produce movement or light.” Working primarily in neon, which appealed to Morellet because it combines line, light, and, when blinking, movement, Morellet gave his enigmatic pieces incongruous titles, using puns and palindromes, to keep them from appearing too solemn.